tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-259893112024-03-08T05:09:11.411-06:00Poems Before BreakfastPoetry from and sometimes about New OrleansMark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-84951215783235345932009-06-27T18:08:00.001-05:002009-06-27T18:08:50.159-05:00MovingI'm moving Poems Before Breakfast over to Wordpress where my other active blogs are. Be sure to visit me<a href="http://poemsbeforebreakfast.wordpress.com/"> there.</a>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-18618129233313491032009-06-26T07:01:00.000-05:002009-06-28T07:01:45.383-05:00Calf Foot BluesBone marrow<br />boiling in this<br />pot black hissing<br />gas ring hot night,<br />a slow reduction to<br />the elemental in<br />the fan-stirred<br />simmer of this<br />gelatin evening.Eulipionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18053010801344712879noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-48956157896881707692009-05-27T15:53:00.000-05:002009-05-27T15:54:01.295-05:00Its Alright MaNo is not an answer<br />but a rock that splashes<br />endless rippling questions<br />and-kerplop-vanishes.<br />Your No drops on the ground<br />among the stubbed out butts<br />where a small, sick bird huddles.<br />Neither of us wants to look.<br /><br />The small cracks in your voice<br />as you say, No, we can’t<br />spread like crazing failing ice.<br />I do not reach across and<br />take your nervous hand,<br />sit arms folded and solemn.<br />Drowning alone and cold<br />is my own foolish choice.<br /><br />I do not want these words,<br />fold your No up and stuff it<br />in my wallet amidst all<br />the litter of responsibility.<br />I watch your soft green eyes<br />caress the sick nestling at our feet<br />which flies off beyond rescue.<br />No, its chirps, I’m alright. Really.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-8705470587032369222009-05-25T15:32:00.003-05:002009-05-25T21:07:11.220-05:00Lost In TransitIf Understanding<br />and Acceptance<br />were streets in this<br />pick-up sticks mess<br />of a city they wouldn't<br />even share a ward<br />much less intersect<br />and there's no good<br />way to get from<br />one to the other<br />on this bus and <br />I just can't get off<br />unless its your stop.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-85803120324919697432009-05-10T20:02:00.003-05:002009-05-22T06:40:40.102-05:00If you do not comeIf I go alone<br />and you do not come<br />the cold moon<br />will watch us both,<br />separate and apart,<br />with the distant glare<br />of a Siamese cat. <br /><br />If you do not go<br />And I alone come<br />I will stand, drinking<br />in the happy chatter<br />and not hear a word,<br />looking over shoulders<br />at an empty chair. <br /><br />If only I go and you,<br />you do not come<br />and walking home alone<br />I cry out<br />It will be lost<br />in the lewd howling<br />of the feral cats.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-55993131426642551982009-05-08T08:11:00.005-05:002009-05-08T10:26:11.901-05:00Solitare in Bb<div class="entrybody"> <div class="snap_preview"><p>When she sent me away<br />I cinched my belt tight,<br />pulled down my hat and<br />drove 200 horses down<br />to the lake shore and<br />idled there a long while<br />on the seawall, alone<br />in silence, with the birds.</p> <p>The waves were small<br />but relentless, slapping<br />at the land’s edge until<br />I felt its pain, and at last<br />I laughed because I was<br />no longer numb, laughed<br />until the birds fled.<br />Solitude suited me.</p> <p>When the gray day<br />turned moonlit and grim<br />and the clouds refused<br />to give up their rain<br />I watched the parked lovers,<br />cars rocking gently over<br />the water like boats and<br />cried because the sky would not.</p> </div> </div>Eulipionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18053010801344712879noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-48992936257042414292009-04-16T08:07:00.007-05:002009-04-16T22:12:50.597-05:00The Oppression of Blooming Magnolias<Em>On Reading Lay Down in Darkness in Middle Age</em> <br /> <br />I am weary of Lear in his linen suit <br />and his Shantung straw, with his whiskey neat <br />and his southern drawl, with his lisping women. <br /> <br />Williams, Styron, Faulkner: I have studied, father, <br />all the chapters in the sacred scripture <br />of southern damnation, and remain unredeemed. <br /> <br />Let us bury them under the old willows <br />among the Confederate dead, lay down <br />their burden by the river and <br /> <br />Rise up, wide-eyed and gasping, born again. <br />Only then will the oppression<br />of blooming magnolias be lifted from us all.<br /> Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-89126767370095334092009-04-12T12:12:00.005-05:002009-04-16T09:12:11.191-05:00Imagined SinsBefore I go mad from imagined sins<br />I want to tear you out of my heart and<br />Process you high through Holy Thursday’s streets,<br />My brazen painted saint, marching barefoot,<br />(O happy martyr) over blood red thorns<br />Of roses children shower before us,<br />Where flailing men weep in their jealous grief,<br />Devout women pull shawls over their heads, <br />Cross themselves, murmur soft prayers over us.<br /> <br />Only by this can I hope to be saved<br />From an eternal burning down below.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-23565604858842838182009-03-18T10:22:00.001-05:002009-03-18T10:23:57.864-05:00The EndNot much to post up here of late, so here's a link to a story I wrote for a local pub's St. Patrick's Day short story writing contest.<br /><br /><a href="http://toulousestreet.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/the-end/">The End</a>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-26836691854310008212009-01-03T20:56:00.016-06:002009-01-07T17:01:48.620-06:00Lucky HarahanLucky Harrahan<br />was not. Stood he<br />in the rain<br />(forecast:sunny)<br />in a lamp-less alley<br />behind the racetrack.<br /><br />Big wet polka dots<br />plashed boldly on his<br />proud plaid jacket.<br />He squished sullenly.<br /><br />He wore his Racing Form<br />umbrella-wise<br />perched pup-tent<br />on his head.<br /><br />He knew, once, how to<br />fashion a printers cap<br />from any odd scrap.<br />An honest trade<br />was not, however,<br />in his cards.<br /><br />He pulled out a fortune<br />of folded horses,<br />damp and loveless<br />matchbooks, bits of<br />primordial lint.<br /><br />His car was here.<br />His keys were not,<br />rabbit foot fled<br />for greener pockets.<br />He swore then,<br />honestly, never to <br />gamble again on a single<br />set of keys.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-40376003710747444592009-01-02T20:17:00.012-06:002009-01-03T16:20:09.286-06:00Oh Happy Day<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >On finding the web site<br /><a href="http://www.everettemaddox.org/">everettemaddox.org</a><br />back on line today</span><br /><br />All these words<br />of mine--<br />count them up like<br />fumbling blunt coins<br />& crumpled bar dollars<br />at the sketchy store,<br />jonesing for cigarettes--<br />what are they worth?<br /><br />If I could write just<br />one goddamn line<br />as good as his worst,<br />I'd quit.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-56087918590836445062008-11-10T08:56:00.017-06:002009-03-30T20:27:26.708-05:00Sad Baritone SaturdayA sad baritone blowing big round Jello-tremulous Os of the blues.<br /><br />That’s what started this ramble into a pleasant melancholia a fizzing afternoon beer buzz of sadness not quite cheerless, simply there like a color in the air, a sky so blue and clear you can hear it, a faint hum beneath your feet, a Fall afternoon so perfectly empty you just want to lay down in the arms of some big oak and root, thinking: well, if the world is going to caterwaul in a crashing train wreck, I guess I’m not busy today. Go ahead. I voted early.<br /><br />And then you remember the Indians, stuffed into the lobby of the museum. So you go and the colors aren’t quite right, all that expanse of white marble flattening the chromatic costumes into something cartoonish, stealing the scene's perspective like some VCR on endless loop, alone in a neutral cream room of neatly labeled artifacts under glass...instead of the slow approach up a street lined with low, sameish houses, long rows of shotguns and maybe a catercorner store.<br /><br />First just a spyboy peering around the colored chalkboard brightly proclaiming Hot Breakfast and Cold Beer, then a hollering of tambourines in the distance and then you spot them, turning a corner, bright-beaded bird creatures from a dream, singing in a language they have made themselves.<br /><br />That’s when you decide: No, thank you I want to slap the snooze button on that doom clock your time doesn’t apply to us down here we’re on Central River Time and things, things are just a bit slower and we’re not quite ready for all your rapturous end times of votes and riots. We’re all in pawn up to the brim of our sharp fur felt hats so here’s a dime: call in all your tall Wall Street stories to someone else.<br /><br />If you’re going to destroy your world try to keep it down to a manageable rumble in the distance, please, perhaps a smudge of smoke on the horizon like a marsh fire and leave us to ourselves, to the scat-o-logical chantings of Fi-Yi-Yi to mad tambourine time, the bright side of the poverty and sadness you turn into columns and hours of politics and we turn into a sad baritone sax blowing big round Jello-tremulous Os, measuring the girth of the blues just about city sized and right for us, thanks.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">3-2-09: Last revision, abandoning stanzas for the original stream of prose with a few edits to make it more breathable to read aloud.</span>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-91616116582487552472008-10-24T08:33:00.026-05:002009-02-14T10:10:49.300-06:00MonkNotice, the docent said, the absence<br />where the leaves of bamboo cross,<br />how the artist did not paint<br />one over the other but left a gap<br />between the two background halves.<br /><br />This technique the Asian painters called a moon shadow.<br /><br />Thelonious stood in the back<br />silent, bobbing his head<br />in an odd rhythm only he heard,<br />a tempo conducted by the baton<br />of distant wind-blown bamboo.<br /><br />His musical chop was a signature all his own.<br /><br />His hands on the keys zigged and zagged,<br />men climbing the crooked mountain who<br />passing the waving bamboo<br />stopped, silent, paused a beat or two<br />to relish the quiet around them.<br /><br />One strikes discordantly at his qin, and they resume.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-370736412965107942008-10-22T14:38:00.009-05:002009-04-28T06:34:04.779-05:00PharaohFirst the bass, small waves<br />slapping slapping slapping<br />at the edge of a melody.<br />Next men's voices enter<br />chanting chanting chanting<br />soft as women walking.<br />Then the melody comes<br />dancing dancing dancing<br />in from the right hand,<br />and coolness comes<br />tinkling tinkling tinkling<br />in a shower of bells.<br /><br />Then he enters, kofia-crowned<br />name sake of the ancient god kings,<br />up from the sacred heart of the Nile<br />and a talking wind down from heaven,<br />plucks a river reed and blows<br />AfricaAfricaAfricaAfricaAfrica,<br />wailing first man shaman<br />from darkest Jim Crow Arkansas<br />mounted by the Creator.<br />Sounds leap and bound from his horn.<br />Lions roar and elephants shriek.<br />Savannah heat rolls over you.<br /><br />He stands like Kilimanjaro,<br />snow capped, making his own weather.<br />He lifts his brass ax and blows<br />black storms, bright with thunder,<br />clouds of startled birds wheeling<br />and calling as the rain turns gentle.<br />The band is a rolling ocean,<br />calm or wild as the weather blows<br />but never still, always rolling,<br />a rocking lullaby for wanderers.<br />Reed boats carry Pharaoh’s people<br />to the land of new pyramids.<br /><br /><em>This one I'm still working on at the margins, but I thought I'd toss it out here for any reader comments. Remember, this is my working journal. </em><br /><em></em><br /><em>Revision 3. Thanks for the writers at Splashhall Poetry for their suggestions. </em>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-23655056633652800902008-10-09T07:26:00.000-05:002008-10-10T07:26:43.300-05:00WordsWords of commerce<br />come easy, go<br />into my out box<br />like automatic writing,<br />mindless<br />and efficient<br />as marching ants.<br />I count the dollars<br />and go home<br />without saying goodnight.<br /><br />My own words are lost,<br />hide from daylight<br />like cockroaches.<br />Pouring a moonlit glass<br />of water they appear,<br />antennae quivering,<br />sketch frantic patterns<br />then vanish, tracing<br />shapes like letters<br />from a foreign tongue.<br /><br />Through the window<br />I glimpse thoughts<br />formed to words,<br />pale letters glowing.<br />I step out, fall in<br />with a crowd, speechless<br />and funeral solemn<br />behind a band.<br />Street signs march past<br />faint and unspoken.<br /><br />The dirge falters<br />in a confusion<br />of wrong notes<br />and stops.<br />This corner has<br />no sign. We search<br />the city of memory<br />for the lost song.<br />Looking for a cigarette<br />I find this pencil.<br /><br /><em>This poems went through several revisions, prompted in part by the very helpful folks over at <a href="http://www.splashhall.org/poetry_forums/">Splashhall Poetry</a>. This is the best so far (in my opinion; no comments over at Splashhall yet). There is the last revision before this in the comments. </em>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-88788625815131809542008-10-02T13:25:00.006-05:002008-10-28T15:30:23.430-05:00A Question for Poets Who Blog VisitorsFirst, a big thank you to Poets Who Blog for their kind attention.<br /><br />The question: if you read through this blog a while you will notice that recently there are three types of poems: those represented by the prose pieces like "Three Years August", the shorter-lined and more kinetic (as one reader noted) works like "Fireworks Suddenly", "Vita Brevis" or "Blinded by Sunrise", and a slightly more lyrical tone of poems like "Its After The End of the World", "Survey of 20th Century Poetry".<br /><br />And a second question: when I come back and read my work here, I think my own efforts to force myself into a line of a fix number of stresses or syllables in a line doesn't work that well. I read them in my head differently than they present on the page, and I think that if I broke up that artificial structure a person casually stumbling in here might hear the poem in their own head more as I hear it in mind.<br /><br />An example:<br /><br />First, the current version of a bit of Blinded by Sunrise, stuffed into a syllabic line count<br /><br />It’s like this: I’ve had just enough of a taste<br />Of your words that I’m haunted like a man<br />In love who’s suddenly not sure where<br />His next drink’s coming from, except<br />It's not from her. She's up and left.<br /><br />Then consider:<br /><br />It’s like this:<br />I’ve had just enough of a taste Of your words<br />that I’m haunted like a man In love<br />who’s suddenly not sure<br />where His next drink’s coming from, except<br />It's not from her. She's up and left.<br /><br />If you have any ideas on that, I would love to hear them<br /><br />And as the note as the side says, kind words are always welcome and real criticism is hard work but thoughtful critiques are always welcome on this journal.<br /><br />Thanks for stopping by, and thank you to Writerwoman for the PoetsWhoBlog site and her own kind words that brought you here.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-62623381686388165202008-09-14T21:59:00.002-05:002008-10-12T11:28:57.233-05:00Ekphrasis: The Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa<a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hokusai/great-wave.jpg"><img alt="Hosuki The Wave" src="http://toulousestreet.wordpress.com/files/2007/06/hokusai.jpg" width="450" /><br />Hokusai's The Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa</a><br /><br />Through the lens of imminent disaster Fuji--the looming backdrop of ten thousand sepia prints--is an insignificant bystander. The mountainous water towers over the iconic peak and the doomed boat. The sailor's backs are turned to the crest of threatening fingers, their hands clasped in muscular prayer to the task of rowing. They did not choose the sea. It is the world they were granted by their ancestors, rain on their fields and fish in the sea. The sky is a mirror of the sea, sometimes placid and other times fierce with wind, and where else shall they live except between the sky and the sea, those promising and pitiless fields of blue? They know the tales of typhoon and tsunami, whole villages swallowed by the sea, coasts given over to ghosts. Still, they rise up with the sun and go down to their own boats. When confronted with the Great Wave, there is nothing to do but row.<br /><br /><em>Another prose piece from Toulouse Street--Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans. If you browse there and search the wave you can see how it has evolved over three different postings. As a resident of New Orleans on the Hurricane Coast, I am constantly drawn back to this picture, and this <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecphrasis">ekphrasis</a> upon it. If I can get it just right, I may submit this to the <a href="http://www.mississippireview.com/upcoming.html">Mississippi Riview Ekphrasis issue</a>.</em> <em>Look for revisions as I make them in the comments section, which is how I plan to use this journal in the future: both to publish works close to a finshed form, and to capture the late revisions.</em>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-50038858583468935872008-08-25T08:27:00.000-05:002008-10-04T07:10:07.905-05:00Crabapple LaneHappiness is for saps.<br />You see them paired in matching<br />polos and shorts,<br />their fat pink squealing children<br />on glossy green lawns.<br /><br />Science we find is wrong.<br />The universe does not rush into<br />their vacuous block<br />to fill the gaping void yawning<br />in formless boredom.<br /><br />There is this skulking skunk.<br />He squats inside my chest<br />sullen, hungry.<br />I want to yank him out, toss him<br />butt first in their yard.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-37397413008341720732008-08-21T13:01:00.008-05:002008-10-04T07:42:24.339-05:00Three Years AugustThree years August and the storms are being named like epic ships, a doom upon our shore, and I think of the levees still leaking and of the flood-walls patched with paper mache, our Potemkin defenses are not ready and we are not ready and the Big One is out there, invisible, a mighty wind, waiting for us. Someone empties a pistol into the night and I think of Jessica and Chanel and Helen and Dinerral as I watch the MPs in their Humvees roll by like armored ghosts. I think of the streets running into blocks running into miles of houses houses houses houses houses empty eyed with plywood doors and ragged lawns. And I think I'll have another drink and light another cigarette and then another drink and then--I stop thinking. That is when this comes into my head. It is a compulsion, like bitting ones nails until they smart and bleed, this thought that what we write may not be our Genesis but an Apocalypse, the history of the end. And yet we stay because to live here is to walk through wrack and ruin counting the flowers in the weeds and discover you are not alone, everywhere there are people smiling, people with crumpled souls and rough stomachs, suffering what you are suffering, worse than you are suffering, suffering beyond your imagining and all for the sake of this place, because they see this city as you do, because they are the figures in the frame that make the landscape. A terrible beauty spills out of their eyes like tears and bathes the city in light.<br /><br /><em>This is as published 8/17 on my main blog, <a href="http://www.toulousestreet.net/">Toulouse Street--Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans</a>, along with a video of David Bowie singing "Five Years". The original post debating a solid block of prose versus a stanza-broken layout is now in the comments. A slight edit to remove the song reference and replace "what we blog" with "what we write".</em>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-87459294567208127032008-07-20T22:17:00.014-05:002008-07-22T06:44:43.005-05:00Fireworks SuddenlyThey come out at night, the flashlight people<br />combing the tide line, lights swinging wildly<br />like some Shakespeare clown watch with a bottle.<br />What do they think to find out in the night<br />that would not wash up in the glare of day?<br /><br />Fireworks suddenly burst over the sand<br />with a bang whoosh snap pop hiss of colors,<br />burning metallic blossoms in the dark,<br />leaving a column of smoke, hesitant<br />then rushing past us like a crowd of ghosts.<br /><br />A whale, my son turns and says as sudden<br />as the fireworks. What, I ask? A whale,<br />that's what might wash up. Let's go down and look.<br />Blink one flock of lights vanish. Down there some<br />thing large and dark sings a watery blues.<br /><br /><br /><br />The flashlight people in Destin, Florida fascinate me. I don't recall them from my trips here as a child, or on the beach in Rehoboth, Delaware.<br />I wrote the above last night then made this note early this morning, considering the last few things I wrote (this and Bukowski's Blackbird): Imagine that which completes the scene, the mood,the thought. That is the magic. The rest is necessary incidental music and gaffers tape.Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-388552025118263522008-07-14T14:20:00.038-05:002008-10-02T13:53:43.906-05:00Dream No. 14<em>After John Berryman </em><br /><br />Don’t dare, you, turn that corner.<br />Too late: look, its already been done.<br />Some damn fool has creased the page.<br />That 'Rette Maddox, he knew this poem.<br />Me, I think he marked this one<br />his self lazing one day at the library.<br /><br />Everette spoke this once, an eruption--<br />sprung up suddenly from a drunken nap,<br />for no reason except perfection.<br />At least that’s what I’ve read.<br />I for one weren't there for that<br />and can’t ask him since he’s dead.<br /><br />Dat Mr. Bones: he’d be OK<br />(for 'Rette's sake) if I bent it again--<br />good and hard--and left it that way,<br />made it part of Maddox's posterity<br />down here, since they keep his poems<br />all locked up at the downtown library.<br /><br /><em>I moved the long blog comment into comments below, which explains what this poem is about. I guess if it needs an explanation, that's a problem. Since I mostly write for myself in this journal, perhaps it isn't. Read the poem, and read the long comment, and tell me if I've succeeded in what I was about.</em>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-25297770941399869702008-07-03T23:00:00.005-05:002008-10-04T07:11:15.565-05:00Bukowski's BluebirdNot only words in his mouth<br />but what look like feathers,<br />clamped tight in his teeth<br />like an anxious gambler's cigarette.<br />Cat eyed and smiling at the bar,<br />he caught beauty perched on a stool<br />and swallowed it in one bite.<br />Now odd notes issue from his throat.<br />His words come out as songs.<br /><br />This is my answer to the poetry challenge posted by <a href="http://midwestpoet.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/hey-all-you-poets-poetry-challenge-1/">Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers</a> to write something in response to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmWZOsVtqR0">Charles Bukowski's Bluebird.</a>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-26480018827006133682008-06-29T14:47:00.019-05:002008-07-10T13:58:18.561-05:00It's After The End Of The WorldIts after the end of the world.<br />Don't you know that yet?<br />-- Sun Ra<br /><br />The city is still littered with stopped clocks.<br />Water swollen calendars watch over<br />kitchens frozen forever in August.<br />The chapters run backwards: first the flood<br />and then the journey to the land of Nod.<br /><br />We are weary of this static landscape,<br />ruins unrelieved by shepherds or fauns.<br />Our Plimsoll marks are sunk along the wharves,<br />the cranes standing derelict and rusted<br />still waiting for the ark that will not come.<br /><br />Noah’s begotten, our only ark is <br />what we make with our own hands, taking scraps<br />washed up around us, fashioning the new,<br />with our own arms stretch out the new cubits<br />on the other side of time and the flood.<br /><br />We reconvene on saw-dusted porches<br />smelling of wet paint, swirl the old cocktail<br />tinkling in new glasses, chilled and dripping.<br />We watch the rock doves building a new nest,<br />twigs of fragrant sweet olive in their beaks.<br /><br />Here in the forever after we live<br />by secret clocks kept close like scapulars.<br />We mark new calendars from blank pages<br />with an old pen rescued from a high shelf,<br />familiar, untouched by the flood waters.<br /><br /><em>A significant revision from the first posting.</em><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Revision 3</span><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/poetry" rel="tag">Poetry </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/poem" rel="tag">Poem</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/new+orleans" rel="tag">New Orleans</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/flood" rel="tag">Flood</a>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-7862878964832869912008-05-26T00:24:00.004-05:002008-05-26T12:45:30.856-05:00Who Tends to Odd Fellows Rest?Who placed these bright plastic wreathes<br />garish on the gray ovens<br />behind this locked gate, beneath<br />this wholly blue sky, empty<br />pitilessly hot, the sun<br />a burning in the heavens?<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/poetry" rel="tag">Poetry </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/poem" rel="tag">Poem</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/new+orleans" rel="tag">New Orleans</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/memorial+day" rel="tag">Memorial Day</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/cemeteries" rel="tag">cemeteries</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Odd+Fellows+Rest" rel="tag">Odd Fellows Rest</a>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25989311.post-9892191565177716322008-05-08T10:10:00.001-05:002008-05-09T13:34:20.263-05:00Honeysuckle NightsThe new planted vine<br />sure looks straggly next to its<br />boisterous neighbors,<br /><br />alone on the end<br />like the runt of the litter<br />pushed to the hind teat.<br /><br />Sweat drips on the roots<br />as I bury them in mulch<br />on Spring's first hot day.<br /><br />Soon honeysuckle<br />will skitter up the fence like<br />swarming anole<br /><br />and I will have stars<br />even when a cloudy night<br />obscures the full moon,<br /><br />wallowing in that<br />heavenly, confederate<br />scent of hot June nights.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://technorati.com/tag/poetry" rel="tag">Poetry </a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/poem" rel="tag">Poem</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/new+orleans" rel="tag">New Orleans</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/spring" rel="tag">spring</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/honeysuckle" rel="tag">honeysuckle</a> <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/summer" rel="tag">summer</a>Mark Folsehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16813261450396857232noreply@blogger.com3